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Video: Paul Richardson on Church Attendance and Community

November 12, 2015: Loren Seibold recently talked with Paul Richardson of the Center for Creative Ministry about the decline in church attendance. Seibold asked the question: “Can spiritual community develop outside of weekly church worship?” Paul talked about a Christian radio network he works with, and how it is becoming a community even without a church building.

Comments: 29

Hansen

November 12, 2015 at 7:04 pm

Comedy, pure comedy

Hansen

November 12, 2015 at 7:05 pm

Comedy, pure comedy.

William Noel

November 13, 2015 at 10:07 am

I am glad to see someone in church leadership recognizing that the old ways of “doing church” are not working and seeking to understand why. If the church is to truly grow we must become focused changing how we “do church” so that we engage members in active ministry and grow new believers.

ROSITA

November 13, 2015 at 1:04 pm

The problem is our Church has a blueprint that it has dicarded, which can be found in the Bible AND Spirit of Prophecy that cannot be improved upon!!! I have authored a 13 lesson course for the churches that will solve every main problem our churches are experiencing right now, using the Bible and a particular book from SoP! Please pray for me as I work on getting it out to the churches. The good thing about this course is that it’s good for any denomination, and it is designed to bring a lot more than vitality and organization to whole churches. To learn more about this course send for the informative PowerPoint at: kbcthecourse4me@gmail.com

Roger Metzger

November 13, 2015 at 10:17 am

It’s amazing to me how may people seem to understand that believers constitute the church but don’t seem to be able to break the habit of referring to church buildings as “churches” or the habit of talking about “going to church” or “coming to church”.

The language we use affects the way we think and the way we act. Perhaps even more importantly, perhaps, there may be multitudes of people who realize there is something decidedly unbiblical about referring to a building (or an organization) as “the church” but who can’t really describe what they find “wrong” about it so they simply “vote with their feet”, not only by not attending formal or semiformal worship services in church buildings but by avoiding close association with people who continue to use unbiblical language when referring to “church”.

Loren Seibold

November 13, 2015 at 11:58 am

Roger, you make a good point about our imprecision with these words. How many different things do we mean when we use the word “church”. Congregation, building, worship, denomination, the universal body of Christians… We could use all of these words I just listed and be much more accurate in our discussion of the church. Thanks!

Loren

Bill Garber

November 13, 2015 at 11:41 am

Thanks for the vido blog entry, Loren. Testimony is so much more vivid when seen and heard as well as read. I would like to have an option to read the transcript, too.

So, what about the idea of church membership encompassing people experiencing their spiritual lives beyond consistent Sabbath morning congregational worship.

Very interesting.

I’m surely looking forward to reading comments from the AToday community regarding the theme here that congregational membership outnumbers weekly attendance and that this is not necessarily a negative indicator for the congregation or its sponsoring denomination.

It is instructive that nowhere in the Gospels is Jesus described as worshiping on the Sabbath.

Jesus is either teaching in the synagogue or otherwise annoying the church leaders by healing in the synagogue, when in the synagogue.

The other accounts of Jesus’ Sabbath experiences in the Gospels records his consistent proclamation that Sabbath behavior is not to be considered a measure of a person’s legal standing with God.

So ought the church to embrace non-congregational-worshiping members?

Loren Seibold

November 13, 2015 at 12:00 pm

>>So ought the church to embrace non-congregational-worshiping members?

I surely think so, Bill. But the question is, how? Right now our ministry is so build around what happens in the “clubhouse” on Sabbath. I visit non-attending members, but how important is it to gather them into a group?

Bill Garber

November 13, 2015 at 4:06 pm

How? Indeed! That is the question, not whether. But until we handle the whether in an open way, we will be confusing both the regular attendees and those coasting along more independently.

We have to get beyond it being OK to see yourself as a Seventh-day Adventist and yet not attending church very often. Neither attending members nor the religious gliders are going to be happy with an OK life experience. We are all, to steal Victor Frankl’s thesis, searching for meaning in our lives.

Now the traditional claim of Seventh-day Adventism is that we create our life’s meaning by successfully getting right with God so that we will not perish, but will have eternal life. Oh, and getting right is not a once right always right experience, though the words usually come out as ‘once saved always saved.’

Until we can preach saved by grace rather than saved by getting right and staying right with God, we are pretty much stuck with attendance itself as a source of meaning for Seventh-day Adventists, are we not?

After all, attendance is pretty easy and so preaching saved by grace will not be welcome by those who are finding meaning in attendance.

And this is not uniquely a Seventh-day Adventist problem. The current issue of Christianity Today explores the eternal plight of infants who have no potential for having gotten right with God.

Elaine Nelson

November 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm

When people seek meaning in life, church attendance is not always, or even partially the answer. Finding meaning is a very personal journey best made alone through reading inspirational books and listening to great music. One’s own thoughts, not the preacher’s sermon.

Bill Garber

November 14, 2015 at 8:20 am

What meaning there may be is for sure personal, Elaine.

How it becomes meaning surely encompasses our social experiences, as with rare exception and fortunately we are inherently social creatures … Or we would not be seeking or seeking to enhance meaning by sharing comments here.

I am attracted to meaning through socialization by having recently reread Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. He explains that knowledge (rational processes), spiritual practice (tongues) and prophecy are inadequate because they are forever incomplete and inherently temporary. Meanwhile he writes that faith and trust (the contemporary translation of the KJV word, hope) and love all endure, and that of the three, love is preeminent.

Faith and trust, the substance of meaning if you will, are deeply personal. Meanwhile, love is the socialization of faith and trust and for some reason Paul finds love most compelling. So is love, which is the socialization of faith and trust, the fertile ground in which faith and trust take root and flourish?

I like the implication of this for understanding the Three Angels’ Message, though space limitations here prevent a more lucid effort to describe the two as in reality sharing the same meaning.

Bill Sorensen

November 14, 2015 at 1:17 pm

“Until we can preach saved by grace rather than saved by getting right and staying right with God,…..”

Bill Garber, if you see this as two different things, you have a severely warped view of salvation. It is certainly not the biblical norm as explained by scripture. But I admit it is pretty much the norm in much of the Christian community of today, not excepting the SDA church.

Bill Garber

November 15, 2015 at 9:42 am

Bill,

Arminianism (and its sibling Wesleyanism), your position, is actually the dominant position among the larger Christian community, and is the official Seventh-day Adventist position on soteriology. In the vernacular, Arminianism teaches that God would very much like to save everyone, but simply cannot.

Coming in a close but clearly still second ranking is Calvinism (Reformed). In the vernacular, Calvinism teaches that God can save everyone, but chooses not to for reasons unknown to us.

Hope for universal salvation for all of God’s creation is not without thoughtful support traced across both testaments of scripture in many passages from Genesis to Revelation.

The thought that God would create humanity with the intent of letting it flourish and then harvest the ones who by random chance meet a Divine criteria and then incinerate in effect the chaff feels horrific, and this is the underlying thesis of both Arminianism and Calvinism, is it not?

How do you get beyond this soteriological conundrum, Bill?

Bill Sorensen

November 15, 2015 at 11:20 am

“How do you get beyond this soteriological conundrum, Bill?”

Mr. Garber, you don’t. Sin has no rational basis of understanding. It does have a definition and explanation of how it exists and the reason it must be dealt with for the sake of all created moral beings in the Universe.

Free moral agency with a free will in all the original creation makes sin possible. But it does not make sin necessary. And this is the controversy that must be settled. Lucifer claimed that if sin is possible, then it is inevitable and the fault lies with God and how He created us.

Whether we are “saved” at last will depend on which side we take in this controversy. If God is ultimately responsible, then your solution is that all should and will be saved. This is a very appealing argument, and most of humanity will eventually accept it. But in this scenario, the value of humanity in the context of self government is eventually utterly destroyed. It would mean I have no inherent value, because no matter what I do or decide, God will eventually over ride in the end so that I can’t and won’t “hurt myself, or anyone else”.

It means God must force me, or He must ultimately persuade me apart from any responsible freedom to do what He knows is best. In the end, it can be defined as “irresponsible freedom” that Satan advocates, or “responsible freedom” that God advocates. Responsible freedom means a possibility of failure if the motive is rebellion against responsible freedom.

Loren Seibold

November 13, 2015 at 12:01 pm

By the way, apologies to you all for my abysmal video quality. I just did this with a phone. I have a lot to learn about both filming and editing. Please look past this to the content!

Loren

Bill Garber

November 13, 2015 at 3:23 pm

Loren, Video was just fine. It had a very nice in person feel to it and no memorable technical distractions. Excellent result!

Sam Geli

November 13, 2015 at 1:00 pm

Thank you for this video and for advocating changes in the way we do church. The greatest impediment to meaningful changes and improvements in our church life is the gap between what leaders say they value and what they actually do. To lead challenging reform efforts, we must be willing to make changes in decision-making policies. Fundamental alternatives to the status quo of apathy and sameness must be presented. We are lacking in peer review and accountability in our ministerial ranks. We are complacent and “business as usual” in our strategies with and for the local church.

When was the last time you went to a church meeting where new ideas were sought and encouraged? One of our local Christian churches has had a tutoring afternoon program for neighborhood youth which has exceeded all expectations in its positive results. Church membership has increased 30% and local monetary offerings to this church have resulted in two new full time pastors being hired to keep up with the visitation ministry. The once small local congregation had hoped to start a church sponsored school, but with this “new-tutoring assistance” being done on an interfaith basis they have surpassed their original hopes for church neighborhood ministry.

We have to start thinking out of the box and be willing to get “new boxes”!

Loren Seibold

November 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm

Sam, it’s been my experience that most of the really great ideas come from successful congregations. The administrators then take the pastor into the conference office, thinking he’ll multiply his success. Instead, his success disappears, and he becomes as guy in a suit attending committees. Loren

Steve up the sleeve

November 13, 2015 at 2:37 pm

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. But if that’s too much, then just love yourself about 50% or so.

As long as the details are lacking, the old wine skin approaches will prevail.

Bob Hawley

November 14, 2015 at 8:33 am

How often a person’s walk with God or level of spirituality is viewed is based on “church” attendance. “He hasn’t been attending church,” so I guess he’s going to hell.

Ecclesia was wrongly translated into “church.” It was a body of Christians called out of the Roman and Judean system to come together into a separate civil community. It meant a politically autonomous body of Christians under no king but Jesus; under no other jurisdiction but that of Jesus. No man ruled them! Only Christ. And that was the reason these same Christians ran into trouble with kings and rulers; were arrested, crucified and martyred.

And that’s the reason many traditional “church” people, especially pastors, have a problem with modern-day house churches. They (pastors) aren’t in control. God is, or should be.

Believers meeting in house churches follow more closely the First Century pattern. No clergy or overhead to pay, no tithe, no pastor lording it over the laity. Any money donated can go directly to meet the needs of fellow believers or outreach.

In such small groups, transparency and accountability are more possible than in a traditional setting and true friendships formed.

The “church” is the people, not sticks and mortar or a place to attend.

Bob Hawley

November 14, 2015 at 8:35 am

That should say:

How often a person’s walk with God or level of spirituality is viewed based on “church” attendance.

Roger Metzger

November 14, 2015 at 2:57 pm

Ecclesia as “called out” means called out of Egypt. “Out of Egypt I have called my son” can be applied to Jesus but in its original context it is a reference to Israel being called out of Egypt–the Exodus.

Gamaliel suggested that when the children ask, on the eve of Passover, “Why is this night different than all other nights”, the father reply, “Because it was on this night that I was called out of Egypt.” Is it personal for you?

The ecclesia isn’t a building. It isn’t an organization. It isn’t limited to members of a particular denomination. It is all those and only those who have been called out of spiritual Egypt–believers.

Mimicking the hierarchical model of the Roman Church may have some “success” if “success” is measured in terms of numbers of “adherents” but the good news about the nature of the kingdom and the manner and purpose of the second advent will have success among people with a protestant heritage only to the extent that adventists proclaim that good news from the perspective that it is believers who–regardless of our denominational affiliation–constitute the church (ecclesia). It is in this context that the advent movement can be understood as a further development of the protestant reformation within the Christian church, rather than as an alternative to protestantism.

jimbob

November 15, 2015 at 7:33 am

Can anyone prove that church attenders get more out of church than taking a anger management class?

Bill Garber

November 15, 2015 at 11:18 am

This matter of church attendance is important.

The goal is not attendance, of course.

So substituting a praise band for the organ is not on the table.

Rather, the goal it seems is to more compellingly explore in love (always a social experience) one another’s faith and hope (or trust, were the KJV translators working today). It is no mere footnote that Paul affirms that love is of greater significance than both faith and trust. Paul is clearly affirming that the social experience of sharing love and trust is more important than either love or trust alone. Attempting to answer the Why? to Paul’s affirmation is a worthy endeavor.

It is helpful to keep in mind that 1 Corinthians 13 is not an isolated message Paul came up with for people celebrating their nuptials. 1 Corinthians 13 is the culmination of the first 12 chapters of his letter to members of the church he founded in Corinth.

Responding to Paul’s affirmation that the social experience of sharing faith and trust is more valuable than both faith and trust is not so much a revolution as a revival and in ecclesiastical thinking a reformation, it seems. Since the recent half-decade of top-down revival and reformation initiatives in our Seventh-day Adventist church have not moved the church in the least, perhaps exploring congregational-level initiatives is the Holy Spirit’s frontier for the church here in North America.

jimbob

November 16, 2015 at 10:02 am

There will be no revival & reformation with the institutional approached used.

SDA pastors and sabbath school teachers are not trained sufficiently/properly.

Even the SS quarterly continuing education seminars are pitiful.

SDA pastors do not present competent expository messages. They do topical damage control/counseling talks…or some Adventist cultic pep rally or chew out sessions.

I feel so sorry for SDA audiences who get fed microwaved religious leftovers or junk food.

SDA leaders try to push evangelism, but who wants to invite people to a church that is constantly verbally abused as being lukewarm Laodiceans?

There is so much control freak/subtle verbal abuse in sermons it is pathetic.

Then there are the ones who are victims of institutional/denominational idolatry, who, when hearing criticism of leaders, freak out and call the criticizers Korah clones.

SDA have so many people who are embarrassed by the diet counsel, EGW prophecies, IJ, WO, LGBT, LGT. Discord is all over the place. Nothing will change this at the GC level.

The younger ones are ruined by worldly culture and are not tithe returners so the church at large will go into a crash & burn because of the older ones dying off.

Most SDA don’t even know what the gospel is. U think I am wrong? Let the GC do a large survey.

Monte Sahlin

November 30, 2015 at 1:56 am

Many large surveys have been done, starting in 1950 and continuing into the present. Read the reports. The data do not support what you described.

Roger Metzger

November 16, 2015 at 1:16 pm

Our denomination has too many members.

If even 20% of SdAs are as selfish as I am, there are too many members.

If even 20% think they can save themselves “with God’s help, there are too many members.

If even 20% think only 7th-day sabbath keeping vegetarians will be translated when Jesus returns, there are too many members.

If even 20% think the Bible should be interpreted by Ellen Whites writings there are too many members.

If even 20% think the “Fundamental Beliefs” should be used as a measure of orthodoxy, there are too many members.

There is only one solution–and that’s a long shot. If as many protestant adventists would get out and encourage people to trust the Lord as what there are now restorationist* adventists encouraging people to trust an institution, imagine how things would change!

*Restorationist by the definition Mormons use when they say “the gospel has been RESTORED through Joseph Smith and his successors.”

In 1982, a very high percentage of Mormons who knew I was an adventist called me “brother” because they thought adventists were also restorationists. Sally and I spent 25 years in Utah trying to correct that misunderstanding.

We may have had more success explaining protestant principles to Mormons than to adventists.

Sam Geli

November 30, 2015 at 5:37 am

jimbob on November 16, 2015 at 10:02 am said: “Most SDA don’t even know what the gospel is. U think I am wrong? Let the GC do a large survey.”

Surveys can be a great source of information about problems the church may be facing. But in order to get the most out of that information, you need to be able to analyze and interpret the results. Finding the most valuable information within piles of survey results requires some work. Surveys can provide a false aura of objectivity which makes their results vulnerable to political manipulation. Many of these problems can be overcome by good survey design and implementation. The Adventist church can improve the way surveys are conducted and used.

Not all surveys warrant action. But all surveys at least warrant consideration of action. So carefully going over the results and keeping an open mind about what they might mean is important. Surveys, even good ones, are one of many resources available to the church.

Our church faces enormous challenges in doing surveys in some cultures where it would be impolite to express open disagreement with the perceived or expected views of an interviewer, thus invalidating the survey process. Surveys also make information demands that can be difficult to meet in societies where literacy and personal record-keeping are less widespread. As a worldwide church we need to use the new techniques of data collection that are constantly being developed for different cultures.

Adventist Today (AT) is an independent journalism ministry serving the global Adventist community and readers interested in a reliable source of information about the Adventist faith and institutions. AT publishes in a number of formats: daily on the Web, via Facebook and Twitter; weekly via Email; monthly via PDF; and quarterly in a print journal.